Email list segmentation for small businesses: three splits

Introduction

Segmentation is discussed as though it required sophisticated software and a data team. For a small business it means something much simpler: stop sending everybody the same email.

The gains are real and immediate, because relevance drives opens, clicks and revenue. But most of the benefit comes from a handful of obvious splits rather than from elaborate rules nobody maintains.

1. Email list segmentation for small businesses should start with three splits

Do these before considering anything more complex.

Customers versus people who have never bought; engaged versus dormant subscribers; and interest or product category. These three account for most of the available improvement and are within reach of any email platform.

2. Separate customers from prospects, because the message differs completely

The most valuable split and the most commonly ignored.

A customer knows your product, has paid, and may want an accessory, a refill, a service or a referral prompt. A prospect needs reassurance, proof and a reason to try you. Sending a first-time-buyer discount to a loyal customer is actively annoying.

3. Split by engagement and treat the groups differently

Recent openers and people who have not engaged in a year are not the same audience.

Your active segment can receive more frequent mail; your dormant one needs a reactivation approach or removal. Continuing to send everything to everybody drags down your deliverability, because providers notice mail that is never opened.

4. Segment by what they have shown interest in

Behaviour is a better indicator than anything a subscriber tells you.

Products viewed, categories bought, services enquired about, links clicked. A pet business that knows who has a dog and who has a cat can double the relevance of every send, and that information is already sitting in the order history.

5. Use purchase timing where your product has a cycle

For anything consumed, replaced or renewed, timing is the segment.

Consumables running out, an annual service due, a subscription renewing, a treatment interval elapsing. An email that arrives at the right point in the cycle performs far better than the same message sent to the whole list at once.

6. Keep the number of segments small enough to maintain

This is where segmentation projects usually collapse.

Fourteen carefully defined segments means fourteen versions of every campaign, and the effort is abandoned within two months. Three or four segments you actually use will outperform an elaborate structure you do not.

7. Do not over-segment a small list

Below a certain size, splitting stops being useful.

Dividing a few hundred subscribers into six groups leaves samples too small to learn anything from and campaigns too fiddly to be worth sending. Grow the list first and segment as the numbers justify it.

8. Suppress rather than send, when the message does not apply

The simplest form of segmentation and it needs no additional content.

Exclude recent purchasers from the promotion of the thing they just bought, exclude non-customers from a loyalty message, exclude the local segment from a shipping offer. Suppression improves relevance without writing anything new.

9. Compare segmented performance against your list average

The point is to know whether the effort is repaid.

Track open, click and revenue per recipient for segmented sends against your unsegmented baseline. The result is usually clearly positive, and it tells you which splits are earning their keep and which are administrative overhead.

Start with one split and add a second only once the first is running without effort. Segmentation abandoned halfway is worse than none, because half your campaigns end up inconsistent.

Conclusion

Segment simply, because most of the benefit comes from three obvious splits and elaborate structures get abandoned.

Separate customers from prospects, divide by engagement and treat dormant subscribers differently, use behaviour and purchase history to infer interest, send on the product's own cycle where it has one, keep the number of segments maintainable, avoid splitting a small list too finely, use suppression as the effortless form of relevance, and measure segmented sends against your unsegmented baseline.

Related reading

• Customer segmentation basics: three splits worth making

• Email deliverability for small businesses: arriving at all

• How often to email your list, given you currently never do

• Following up by phone rather than email when writing has failed

• Customer segmentation that changes what you charge, defensibly

• Demand capture versus demand creation, and which you need